Results :
Applying the multimodal criteria, 42 (42.9%) eyes progressed to late-stage AMD after five years: 7 patients after one year, 20 patients after two, 26 after three and 34 after four years. In 25 (59.5%) eyes chorioidal neovascularization (CNV) and in 17 (40.5%) eyes central geographic atrophy (GA) occurred. Risk factors for conversion to both late-forms included hyperpigmentations (p=0.027) and confluent drusen (p=0.04) at baseline. Of the 17 eyes with central GA development, preexisting paracentral GA progressed into the central subfield in 6 eyes, while 11 eyes developed de-novo GA. Yet based on AREDS criteria, only 7 of these 17 eyes would have been recognized as having developed central GA.

Conclusions :
These findings are important for a better understanding of conversion rates and high-risk features for development of late-stage AMD. They confirm that morphological biomarkers are of particular prognostic value. Further, the results indicate that multimodal imaging may allow for earlier and more precise detection of vision-related disease manifestation.

This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.